Mike Vandewalle, N8MTV, offered a helpful hand to put the finishing touches onto the hexbeam project last nite 5/23.
The missing 15m directive and reflective wire element had finally arrived from KIO Technologies and it was carefully installed on the spiderweb-like antenna after the whole antenna was unmounted from the tower and brought back to ground level. Mike also installed a series of clamp-on ferrite choke beads on the coax. Without this ferrite choke, common mode RF currents flow on the outside of the coax making the feedline act like another antenna. The causes unwanted radiated RF power which will distort the front/back performance or front/side performance of the hexagonal beam. This Saturday will be our antenna raising party, where we will crank it up and test it’s performance in the shack. 6m, 10m, 15m, 17m, 20m all in one spiderweb!
View photos from this event.